How to Grow Kale at Home in the UK

If you only grow one winter vegetable, make it kale. It is the hardiest leafy crop you can grow in a British garden, it shrugs off frost that flattens everything else, and a single sowing in early summer keeps you in fresh greens from October right through to the following spring. Best of all, it is genuinely forgiving — get the basics right and kale all but grows itself.

This guide takes you from seed packet to a winter's worth of pickings: the varieties worth growing in the UK, where to put your plants, how to sow and transplant them, and — crucially — how to keep cabbage white caterpillars off your leaves.

Why grow kale

Kale earns its place in any beginner's plot for four solid reasons.

It is astonishingly hardy. Most kale varieties survive temperatures down to around -15°C without protection. While your lettuce has long since collapsed and the courgettes are a distant memory, kale stands green and upright through snow and hard frosts. A frost actually improves it — cold weather converts some of the plant's starches to sugars, so winter kale tastes noticeably sweeter than the leaves picked in milder autumn weeks.

It crops in the hungry gap. The "hungry gap" is the lean stretch from late winter into mid-spring when last year's stored crops have run out and this year's sowings aren't ready. Kale is one of the few things still cropping then. Alongside leeks and winter salad leaves, it keeps the kitchen supplied when there is little else fresh to pick.

It is cut-and-come-again. You don't harvest a kale plant all at once. You pick a few of the youngest leaves whenever you need them, the plant keeps growing from the top, and one plant can give you pickings for six months or more. A row of six to eight plants will keep a household in greens all winter.

It is good for you and easy to cook. Kale is one of the most nutrient-dense leaves you can grow, packed with vitamins and minerals, and it holds up to almost any cooking — wilted with garlic, dropped into soups and stews, or baked into crisps. None of that matters, though, if it isn't easy to grow, and kale absolutely is. It is one of the easiest crops for beginners precisely because it tolerates poor weather, irregular watering and a fair bit of neglect.

Choosing varieties

Kale is a brassica — the same family as cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts — and there is more variety in the type than most people realise. The four below cover every taste and situation a UK grower is likely to want.

Curly kale (Dwarf Green Curled, Westland Winter). The classic supermarket kale, with tightly ruffled deep-green leaves. Dwarf Green Curled is compact and wind-tolerant, which makes it a sound choice for exposed gardens and smaller plots. Westland Winter is bigger and exceptionally hardy, bred to stand through the worst of a British winter. Both are reliable, productive and a good first choice.

Cavolo nero (Tuscan kale, black kale). Long, narrow, almost black blistered leaves with a deeper, sweeter, slightly nutty flavour. Nero di Toscana is the variety to look for. It is the kale of choice for Italian cooking and looks handsome enough to earn a spot in an ornamental border. Slightly less hardy than curly kale but still sails through most UK winters.

Red Russian. Flat, frilly, oak-shaped leaves with purple-tinged stems. It is tender and mild — the youngest leaves are good raw in salads — and quick to establish. A little less bomb-proof in deep cold than curly types, but a lovely kale for autumn and milder winter pickings.

Redbor. A frilly purple-red kale that is as much an ornamental as a crop. The colour deepens in cold weather, so it earns its keep in a winter container or the front of a bed as well as on the plate. An F1 variety, so it is vigorous and uniform.

Where to grow

Kale is undemanding, but a few conditions bring out the best in it.

Sun or part shade. A spot in full sun gives the strongest growth, but kale will tolerate part shade better than most vegetables — useful if your sunniest beds are taken by tomatoes and beans. It is one of the few crops you can grow reasonably well in a bed that only gets sun for part of the day.

Firm, fertile soil. Kale grows tall and stands all winter, so it needs to be well anchored. Loose, fluffy soil leads to plants that rock in winter gales and topple over. The ideal is ground that was well manured for a previous crop and has had a season to settle — firm but fertile. If you are starting fresh, work in plenty of well-rotted compost or manure a few months ahead, then tread the soil firm before planting. A homemade batch is ideal here, so it is worth learning how to make compost to keep your beds in good heart. Improving the structure and fertility of your bed pays off all winter, so it is worth reading up on improving your soil before you start.

Slightly limed, not acidic. Brassicas prefer a near-neutral soil (pH around 6.5–7.0). On acidic ground, adding garden lime a few weeks before planting raises the pH and, helpfully, reduces the risk of clubroot. A simple soil-test kit tells you where you stand.

Mind your rotation. Because kale is a brassica, don't grow it where you grew other brassicas — cabbage, broccoli, sprouts, swede, turnips or radish — in the previous year or two. Rotating brassicas around the plot stops soil-borne problems like clubroot building up. Plan it out with the crop rotation planner, which keeps your families moving sensibly around the beds.

No-dig works beautifully. Kale suits a no-dig bed perfectly. A thick mulch of compost spread over an undug bed gives the firm, fertile, well-structured ground brassicas love, with none of the soil disturbance that can bring weed seeds to the surface. If you are setting up beds this way, our guide to no-dig gardening walks through the method.

Sowing and transplanting

Kale is almost always raised in a seedbed or in modules and then moved to its final position. This sounds fiddly but is the standard, reliable way to grow it — it lets you keep precious bed space cropping with something else while the young kale grows on, and it gives you sturdy, transplant-ready plants.

Sowing in modules (the easy route for beginners)

Module trays — those plastic trays of individual cells — are the simplest method if you only want a handful of plants.

1. Fill the cells with multipurpose or seed compost and firm gently.
2. Sow two seeds per cell, about 1.5cm deep, any time from April to June.
3. Water, and keep the tray somewhere bright and sheltered — a cold frame, greenhouse, or a sunny spot outdoors. Kale germinates readily at normal spring temperatures.
4. Once seedlings are up, thin to the strongest one per cell by snipping the weaker off at the base.

The seedlings are ready to plant out when they are 10–15cm tall with a few true leaves and a good root system filling the cell, usually four to six weeks after sowing.

Sowing in a seedbed

If you want a lot of plants, sow direct into a spare patch of fine, firm soil. Draw out a shallow drill 1.5cm deep, sow thinly, cover and water. Thin the seedlings as they grow so they don't get drawn and leggy, then lift them carefully for transplanting when they reach 10–15cm.

Hardening off and transplanting

If your young plants have been raised under cover, give them a week of hardening off first — standing them outside during the day and bringing them in at night, then leaving them out for longer each day. This gradual toughening-up stops the shock of a sudden move outdoors checking their growth.

When you plant out, the golden rule for kale is firm and deep:

1. Space plants 45–60cm apart each way. Curly varieties can go a little closer; big, vigorous types like Westland Winter want the full 60cm.
2. Make a hole, drop the plant in so the lowest leaves are just above soil level — deeper than it sat in its pot — and backfill.
3. Firm the soil hard around the stem with your knuckles or the heel of your hand. A common test among growers: tug a leaf, and if it tears before the plant lifts, it is firm enough.
4. Water in well to settle the soil around the roots.

Planting deep and firm gives you a stable plant that won't rock loose in winter wind — the single most common reason home-grown kale disappoints.

Care

The good news: once established, kale needs very little. The jobs that matter are watering through dry spells, keeping plants firm, and — above all — keeping the cabbage whites off.

Watering. Water regularly for the first few weeks after transplanting until the plants are clearly growing away. After that, established kale is fairly drought-tolerant and only needs watering in genuinely dry summer weeks. A good soak once or twice a week beats a daily splash — it encourages deep roots.

Feeding. Kale is a hungry, leafy crop. If your soil was well prepared with compost it may need nothing extra, but a feed of a high-nitrogen liquid feed or a scattering of pelleted chicken manure in late summer keeps the leaves coming as growth slows into autumn. If you keep a small flock, well-rotted chicken manure works beautifully in the vegetable garden on hungry brassicas like this. Don't overdo nitrogen late in the year, though — soft, sappy growth is more frost-tender.

Firming and earthing up. Check your plants after autumn gales. If any have worked loose, re-firm the soil around the base and, on tall varieties, draw a little soil up around the stem to brace them. A short cane and tie supports top-heavy plants on very exposed sites.

Netting. This is the one job that makes or breaks a kale crop, so it gets its own section below.

Pests

Kale's hardiness is matched by a handful of determined pests. None is hard to deal with once you know what to expect, and prevention is far easier than cure.

Cabbage white caterpillars (the big one)

From late spring through summer, cabbage white butterflies lay eggs on the undersides of brassica leaves. The caterpillars that hatch can strip a kale plant to its ribs in days. This is the single most important pest to plan for.

The simplest, most reliable defence is a barrier. Cover plants with fine insect mesh or butterfly netting from the moment they go out, supported on hoops so it doesn't touch the leaves (caterpillars hatch and feed wherever a butterfly can reach through). Standard "bird netting" with large holes won't stop the butterflies — you need a fine mesh of around 7mm or smaller. Check under the leaves regularly anyway and squash any clusters of yellow eggs or green caterpillars you find. For the full diagnosis-and-treatment runthrough, see our guide to cabbage white caterpillars.

Pigeons

Wood pigeons love brassicas, and in winter — when other food is scarce — they will shred unprotected kale. The same netting that keeps butterflies out keeps pigeons off, which is why many growers leave the netting on all year. On an open plot, a few strands of cotton or a scattering of bird-scaring tape gives extra deterrence.

Whitefly

Brassica whitefly are tiny white insects that rise in clouds when you brush the plants. They are more unsightly than seriously damaging on kale — a hard cold winter knocks them back — but a strong jet of water dislodges them, and removing the lower, older leaves where they congregate keeps numbers down.

Clubroot

Clubroot is a soil-borne disease that swells and distorts brassica roots, stunting the plant. It is the main reason brassica rotation matters. There is no cure once it is in your soil, so prevention is everything: rotate your brassicas, keep the soil limed towards neutral, improve drainage, and never bring in plants or soil from an infected plot. Raising your own plants in clean compost, rather than buying in plug plants, also reduces the risk of importing it.

Now that you know what kale needs to thrive — and what it needs protecting from — here is the modest kit that makes growing it through a UK winter straightforward.

Harvesting through winter

Kale is ready to start picking from around October, though you can take a few young leaves earlier if the plants are well established. Once it gets going, harvesting is a pleasure that runs for months.

Pick from the top and the sides, little and often. Take the youngest, most tender leaves first — the rosette of new growth at the top of the plant and the smaller leaves up the sides. Always leave the central growing point and a good crown of leaves intact; that is the engine that keeps producing. Snap or cut each leaf off cleanly at the stem.

Strip the old leaves too. As you harvest, remove any large, tough, yellowing lower leaves and add them to the compost. Keeping the plant tidy this way deters whitefly and keeps energy going into fresh growth.

The frost makes it better. Resist the urge to harvest your main crop too hard before winter sets in. Kale picked after the first few frosts is sweeter and milder, so the cold months are when it is at its very best.

Spring sprouts — the final bonus. As days lengthen in late winter, an unharvested kale plant throws up tender flowering shoots, much like sprouting broccoli. Pick these "kale sprouts" while the buds are still tight and the plant gives you one last, delicious crop right at the end of the hungry gap before you clear it for the compost heap.

A single early-summer sowing, planted firm and kept under netting, will feed you from autumn leaves through midwinter pickings to spring sprouts — close to nine months of fresh greens from one row. For a winter plot, few crops give back so much for so little. Pair it with leeks and some winter salad leaves and you'll never face a bare hungry gap again. For more crops to fill the calendar, browse the full range in our grow vegetables hub.